Quotes & Sayings About Things Not Being What You Expected

My mother was a phoenix who always expected to rise from the ashes of her latest disaster. She loved being Judy Garland. — Lorna Luft

Because when you have been shown mercy by your Father in Heaven, you cannot keep it in inside. People who have been given mercy want to hand it out freely and generously. Once you have known the indescribable joy of receiving love when you had expected judgment, there is no containing the lengths you will go to give it away. And so the life inclined toward mercy becomes a beautiful offering to God. In your great need, you can turn your aching heart toward the Father and ask for His mercy. From the riches of His lavish love, He will tenderly give all that you need. Humbled by such a gracious gift, your heart will long to share with others who need mercy too. And when the one who gives mercy remains in the presence of God, all the mercy required is continually being provided. — Angela Thomas

I try my very hardest to remember that I don't have to be anything but Evangeline. That's all that's expected of me. And if I try to be more or less, I will fall flat on my face. So if I just continue to hold my head high and keep myself in check, I'm being who I was born to be. — Evangeline Lilly

Once more September marveled that even the Dodo knew what she wanted to be when she was grown. She simply could not think what she herself might do. September expected that destinies, which is how she thought of professions, simply landed upon one like a crown, and ever after no one questioned or fretted over it, being sure of one's own use in the world. It was only that somehow her crown had not yet appeared. She did hope it would hurry up. — Catherynne M Valente

From the fact of general well-being came the new position of the poor. They were now in most communities a minority. The voice of the people was now the voice of relative affluence. Politicians in pursuit of votes could be expected to have a diminishing concern for the very poor. Compassion would have to serve instead - an uncertain substitute. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Words are very powerful and can lead anyone reading them or hearing them, into contemplation and insight. How the mind follows suit is rarely palpable or expected. This impact is not a matter of metaphysical effects nor of an unexplainable phenomenon. It's simply part of being human. — David Mitchell

He flopped down beside me on the couch, closer than I would have expected, and when Micah strolled in a minute later and sat down on the other side of me, also close, I felt a twinge of weirdness. Not that I would mind being in a Springfield — Anonymous

Our Arab mothers and sisters are suffering from injustices like domestic violence, sexual harassment, child marriages and honour killings, some are still fighting for their right to drive or travel without male custody therefore our powerful Arab media was not only expected to broadcast this particular one of a kind Women's march it should have held panels to dissect the issues being brought forth in order for the Arab world to better understand that gender equality is not an idea that one believes in, it is a planned movement that requires an enormous effort on the part of both men and women to reach. — Aysha Taryam

It is unnatural that a pure stream should flow from a foul fountain its vices are but a continuation of the vices of its origin. A man of moral honor and good political principles, cannot submit to the mean drudgery and disgraceful arts, by which such elections are carried. To be a successful candidate, he must be destitute of the qualities that constitute a just legislator: and being thus disciplined to corruption it is not to be expected that the representative should be better than the man. — Thomas Paine

The popular conception of any philosophical doctrine is necessarily imperfect, and very generally unjust. Lucretius is often alluded to as an atheistical writer, who held the silly opinion that the universe was the result of a fortuitous concourse of atoms readers are asked to consider how long letters must be shaken in a bag before a complete annotated edition of Shakespeare could result from the process; and after being reminded how much more complex the universe is than the works of Shakespeare, they are expected to hold Lucretius, with his teachers and his followers, in derision. A nickname which sticks has generally some truth in it, and so has the above view, but it would be unjust to form our judgment of a man from his nickname alone, and we may profitably consider what the real tenets of Lucretius were, especially now that men of science are beginning, after a long pause in the inquiry, once more eagerly to attempt some explanation of the ultimate constitution of matter. — Fleeming Jenkin

One of the advantages of no longer being young is that you're expected to start making up your mind about certain things. — Terry Teachout

How are you?" Charlie asks. She's turned to me wearing this grave expression, her features all set in a row. I expected her to be pissy about my being nonresponsive all weekend, or at least about my being late this morning, but if she is, she's not acting like it.
"Um, fine. Are we going?"
Charlie glances back at Olivia.
"He's an asshole," Olivia says.
"She's a bitch," Charlie says. — Rebecca Serle

I remember the astonishment I felt when I first read Shakespeare. I expected to receive a powerful esthetic pleasure, but having read, one after the other, works regarded as his best: "King Lear," "Romeo and Juliet," "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," not only did I feel no delight, but I felt an irresistible repulsion and tedium ... Shakespeare can not be recognized either as a great genius, or even as an average author ... far from being the height of perfection, [King Lear] is a very bad, carelessly composed production, ... can not evoke among us anything but aversion and weariness ... All his characters speak, not their own, but always one and the same Shakespearian, pretentious, and unnatural language ... — Leo Tolstoy

In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action. — Hannah Arendt

My first spoken word poem, packed with all the wisdom of a 14-year-old, was about the injustice of being seen as unfeminine. The poem was very indignant, and mainly exaggerated, but the only spoken word poetry that I had seen up until that point was mainly indignant, so I thought that that's what was expected of me. — Sarah Kay

Think about the farmer," Akil tells me. "The farmer can't control and predict very much either. So why is that any better or worse than being on Wall Street? As a farmer, if there was a freeze that destroyed your crops, that might've stressed you, but it wasn't your fault. But as a knowledge worker, you're expected to be in charge of everything. And when things go wrong, it is your fault. The thinking is, you could have planned more, or you should have anticipated what went wrong. That combination of having a lot coming at you and of shifting away from physical work - which does help cope with stress - and not even being able to say, 'It's not my fault, I surrender to higher forces,' whether you believe it's weather or God - that's been taken away." * — Brigid Schulte

Is it not enough that I am devoured, without my being expected to bless the power that devours me? — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Nobody or Nowhere? Fern: I'd rather be nobody at home than somebody somewhere else.
Ambrose: I'd rather be nowhere. Being nobody when you're expected to be somebody gets old.
Fern: How would you know? Have you been nobody?
Ambrose: Everybody who is somebody becomes nobody the moment they fail. — Amy Harmon

But one of the marvelous things about being Ronan Lynch was that no one ever expected him to do anything nice for anyone. — Maggie Stiefvater

It started off for me as just wanting to be an actor and sort of resenting in a weird way being expected to write as well as be a comedian and an improviser. And then you think about it for a minute, and I smartened up and realized that the only way to sustain a career is to generate your own material. Or to be in control of your career as best you can. And in allowing yourself to do that it opens up a whole new world of possibilities. And then you're like "Oh, producing is a thing." — Rob Corddry

Ten-year-old Auggie Pullman, who was born with extreme facial abnormalities and was not expected to survive, goes from being home-schooled to entering fifth grade at a private middle school in Manhattan, which entails enduring the taunting and fear of his classmates as he struggles to be seen as just another student. — Anonymous

Halt eyed them balefully. They were all being so obvious about not mentioning his sudden reappearance that it was even worse than if they had commented on it ...
'Oh, go on!' he said. 'Somebody say something! I know what you're thinking!'
'It's good to see you up and about, Halt,' Selethen said gravely ...
Halt glared at the others and they quickly chorused their pleasure at seeing him back to his normal self. But he could see the grins they didn't quite manage to hide. He fixed a glare on Alyss.
'I'm surprised at you Alyss,' he said. 'I expected no better of Will and Evanlyn, of course. Heartless beasts, the pair of them. But you! I thought you had been better trained!' ...
'Halt, I'm sorry! It's not funny, you're right ... Shut up, Will.' This last was directed at Will as he tried, unsuccessfully, to smother a snigger. — John Flanagan

I had never met a lord before, nor had I ever expected to meet one. It didn't matter what he looked like: he was a lord first, and a human being, with a face and limbs and body, long, long after. — L.P. Hartley

Beyond the personal discomfort, her larger point was that women aren't going to achieve social equality until some technological alternative is invented to save us from being the only sex expected to go through it. If men were the ones forced to endure this ordeal, obviously such a technological solution would long ago have been devised. — Laura Kipnis

What between the duties expected of one during one's lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after one's death, land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one position, and prevents one from keeping it up. That's all that can be said about land. — Oscar Wilde

Much of Hamlet is about the precise kind of slippage the mourner experiences: the difference between being and seeming, the uncertainty about how the inner translates into the outer, the sense that one is expected to perform grief palatably. (If you don't seem sad, people worry; but if you are grief-stricken, people flinch away from your pain.) — Meghan O'Rourke

Tate did anything he wanted to and expected me to put up with it or give into it. This was annoying. I was all for Tate being a macho man, badass, bounty-hunting biker because all that was immensely attractive but I'd spent more than ten years being in the control of a man. I wasn't looking for that kind of thing again no matter what form it came in. That said, as Caroline noted, Brad thought he was all that and wasn't but Tate was. No man liked a bitchy, nagging, argumentative shrew and, I would guess, definitely not a man like Tate. If I didn't cool that too maybe I'd turn him off and lose him. — Kristen Ashley

I can't recall a story that played out exactly as I'd expected it to. That's one of the thrills of journalism - being surprised, and learning new stuff, but it also poses the biggest challenge to a writer's character. — Dave Barry

He tested the knots, as though he gave a shit. "Is it too tight?" Ian asked, his voice quiet and serious. She stayed silent, not willing to give him anything. He'd taken her world away and then expected her to submit? "Charlie, baby, talk to me. I can't stand this. I hate that I shut you down. I don't want to. I want to be cold. I want to not care. I can't. I can't let you go." "You're taking away my options." "Because I gave them all to you last time and you fucking didn't choose me. You chose everyone but me. I'll fix this. I'll save you. Choose me, Charlie. Choose us. Trust me. Give me the option of being your hero. — Lexi Blake

Miss Brobity's Being, young man, was deeply imbued with homage to Mind. She revered Mind, when launched, or, as I say, precipitated, on an extensive knowledge of the world. When I made my proposal, she did me the honour to be so overshadowed with a species of Awe, as to be able to articulate only the two words, "O Thou!" meaning myself. Her limpid blue eyes were fixed upon me, her semi-transparent hands were clasped together, pallor overspread her aquiline features, and, though encouraged to proceed, she never did proceed a word further. I disposed of the parallel establishment by private contract, and we became as nearly one as could be expected under the circumstances. But she never could, and she never did, find a phrase satisfactory to her perhaps-too-favourable estimate of my intellect. To the very last (feeble action of liver), she addressed me in the same unfinished terms. — Charles Dickens

We as human being do dream & do expect a lot for what we are not entitled but there comes a phase when we get what we have never expected or dreamt of ... So, Accept every little thing that life offers cause might be this is what we deserve ... — Anonymous

And they didn't like to pay with trust and love, but rather with money and goods. They betrayed each other and expected being betrayed themselves. — Hermann Hesse